When I grow up......

When I grow up......
acrylic on canvas
24x30"

Lost in her own world of dreams a small girl dances, she dreams of beauty and she dreams of grace, and she dreams of the future - her future. She dreams of when she grows up........

This piece was painted for the "Life" auction to be held at the Bruce Mason Centre on Feb 3rd. As it goes to auction I will be having my head shaved to support the Leukaemia and Blood Foundation of NZ.

Painting this piece was harder than I thought, it began with the idea of a child looking forward at all life has to bring. However as I worked it became for me a chance to look back. I used to be that little girl, although for me my love was horses. I'd "saddle" up the verandah with an old towel and use my dressing gown cord for the reins and I'd ride from dusk til dawn. I did eventually work with horses as a trek guide and stable hand. It was never as I pictured it though, I quickly became restless and disillusioned.

This trip down memory lane didnt end there, I began to dwell on missed opportunity and paths not taken. It took a lot of strength to move past that. I had to focus myself in an incredibly strict fashion, and pull back to the original reason behind the painting.

Portrait - Little Green Thumb (work in progress)

So here is my latest work in progress, a portrait of my youngest daughter helping to build a garden at her preschool. As usual I am working in acrylic on canvas. I have just started using a new brand of canvas, it's slightly more expensive than my usual - but well worth it as far as I'm concerned. As you can see I've mostly blocked in the basics, I'm now working on the folds in the sweatshirt and shorts - which are probably the most difficult aspects of this piece. I'm also experimenting with how many layers I can use on the background in the "crackled look" that I've been working on, before I lose the base colours. I'm up to three and I'm thinking that four may be too many....

"Treasure" - acrylic portrait on canvas

So after a rather lovely weekend camping I thought I'd best get back into the swing of things and show you all what I've been up to.......and here it is. The painting is based on the sketch I posted earlier of my daughter. It captures her serious, thoughtful side well and although I'd still like to tweak it here and there I am rather happy with the outcome.

Portrait of my girl - pencil sketch

So as you may well know I've been rather busy lately - too busy in fact to paint. I have however been able to take time to revisit the humble pencil. The above pic is a sketch I just completed of my daughter - I worked from a photo taken a couple of years ago which I always thought would make for a great painting, I'm rather happy with the results. It did take a couple of false starts but once I started I remembered just how much I enjoy the simplicity of a pencil! No major cleanup, no major set up - rather fantastic concept really. It lead me to thinking about my world series and how I've been putting it off for bigger canvases when in reality perhaps all I needed was a different approach. I shall think further on this - and in the meantime shall definitely explore drawing further.